


Guardianship

by ScienceOfficerWillowRosenberg (workaholicSlacker)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mostly Dialogue, Spike getting all emotional, a single instance of the c-word in the British fashion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/workaholicSlacker/pseuds/ScienceOfficerWillowRosenberg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike and Tara talk Dawn.</p><p>Set between seasons 5 and 6.</p><p>Edited as of April 30th, 2017</p><p>Sorry your comments disappeared, y'all.  I had to do some shenanigans to update this because Ao3 was being buggy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardianship

Of course he was sitting on the stoop.

“Dawnie’s fast asleep, Spike. You can go home now.”

“Want a ciggie?” He actually scooted over to make room.

“I, uh, don’t really smoke.”

“Ah well. Smoker’s code of honor, yeah?”

Tara sat. “Honor, huh?”

“I’m a bloodsucking fiend, sure, but when a fellow needs a smoke, he needs a smoke.”

Tara shook her head. It was still a puzzle, Spike being in Dawn’s life. He’d said something about a promise to Buffy, and he genuinely seemed half-decent when he was around her, but she’d heard the stories from Willow and Buffy.

“Y-you know, Willow isn’t crazy about you being here and stuff.”

“Well, she’s not Buffy, now is she?” Spike seemed genuinely offended.

“Buffy’s--”

“I bloody well know she’s gone. You don’t exactly forget that.”

“All right.”

“I mean, I don’t blame Red for it. Did some pretty nasty things to her and her mates.” He smirked as he said it. He took out a flask and drank.

“Blood?”

“Whiskey.”

“Watching Dawn, you were, uh...”

“As a judge, luv. ‘S why I’m drinking now. Want some?”

“I d-don’t like the taste.” This was true, but even if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to get drunk with Spike.

“Well, you’re no fun.”

“And I’m okay with that.”

Spike smiled. “So what brings you out here at this hour of the night? Girlfriend snore too loud?”

“I kind of w-wanted to be alone with my thoughts.”

“God, who’d want that? Thoughts are treacherous little buggers.”

“So I guess you miss her, then.”

Spike raised his voice considerably. “Course I sodding miss her. I was...she was...she mattered, alright?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“Poor Dawn.”

“Tara was taken aback at this level of empathy. “Yeah. She does better with it some days.”

“I’d be bloody furious. I’d rage against the damned heavens, I would.”

“Well, that’s you.”

“I mean it. Girl’s had a bastard of a year. That she holds it together at all is a fucking miracle.”

“She has us.” Tara didn’t really believe this, even as she said it.

“To us,” Spike said bitterly, downing a shot from his flask. Tara pantomimed knocking a shot back. Spike smiled at that. Then he smiled wider. “So it’s Red’s lighter, then?”

“What?”

Spike just sat there with his smug grin.

“Dawn doesn’t know, okay?”

“Witch-mums puffin’ on the pretty green, eh?”

Tara looked at her shoes.

“I don’t judge, luv. Just thought she’d given it up after wolf-boy.”

“I--I’m okay with her having dated a boy, Spike. You can’t get under my skin like that.”

He held up his hands. “Wasn’t trying to.” Tara was pretty sure that was a lie.

“Why are you like that?”

“I’m not like anything."

“Y-you try to push, uh, push people’s buttons.”

“Caught me. I am evil, after all.”

“You’re an ass is what you are.” Tara was surprised to have spit this out.

Spike just smirked.

“Speaking of evil, why did you punch me? I mean, to prove I wasn’t a demon, when my f-family came for me.”

“Honestly? Your dad just seemed a right cunt.”

“Please tell me you don’t use that word around Dawnie.”

“Little Bit’s virgin yank ears are safe around me. She’ll only hear it from her schoolmates.”

“Good.” Tara didn’t know she could sound that firm. “That was all, though? You didn’t like my father?”

“That and I had an opportunity to hit somebody.”

“I keep expecting you to have layers.”

“Nope.” If Spike had a reflection, Tara would have thought he practiced his smirks in the mirror. “I like the people I like, and I don’t like the people I don’t like. In the best of all possible worlds, I’d be killing the people I don’t like, but such is life, I suppose.”

“And you like Dawn.”

“Liked Joyce too. And the Slayer, well…” he trailed off. His posture changed; he had sort of huddled in on himself. He was looking down.

Tara didn’t say anything.

Spike swore under his breath.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah, not like any of you lot wanted me anywhere near her.”

“Um, well...”

“Yeah, I know,” Spike said in a resigned tone. “Oh, hell with it all.”

Spike drained his flask and threw it into the bushes. “Un-bloody-fair is what it is. Her gone and me still kicking around. I’m fucking pathetic, I am. Playing sitter like this, for what? So some dead body will think I’m such a good fucking bloke?”

“Spike…”

“What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Spike, Dawn might hear you.”

“Shit,” he muttered. “Sorry. Little Bit deserves better.”

“Yeah,” Tara said, “She does.”

“Bloody hell, woman, you don’t need to twist the knife.”

“N-no. I mean all of, of this. She’s just a kid. She’s...she’s innocent. I don’t care if she was the key or anyth-thing, she’s supposed to be…”

“Skipping class, having her first cigarette, snogging some horrible schoolmate that happens to have nice hair, that sort of thing?”

“I...I mean, yes. I don’t want her doing any of that, but, yeah. She should be a teenager.”

Spike sighed. “She’s really all right, you know.”

“You think so?”

“It’s not perfect, but yeah.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because I’m the one that gets weepy, all right? She keeps _my_ chin up. If I didn’t have her to take care of, to watch the telly with, to play Ramones records for...”

“You’d lose it.”

“Bloody well would. You weren’t there when Dru left me, were you? Actually, forget that, yeah? Don’t ask Willow about it or anything.”

“Dawn’s a good kid.” Tara said it to no one in particular.

“She’s a right little snot, actually. ‘S why I like her.”

Tara smiled.

“I’d toast her, but my booze is all gone. Don’t suppose you lot have a well-stocked liquor cabinet?”

“N-not really?”

“Share a spliff, then?”

Tara laughed. “No.”

“Thought not. Oh well.” He stood up and started to walk away.

“Hey,” said Tara, hopefully loud enough to get Spike to stop. “Thanks.”

“Don’t do it for _you_ , now do I?”

Tara supposed he didn’t. She supposed he just liked Dawn. Maybe he didn’t have layers. He wasn’t somehow a good person. He wasn’t even a person, after all.

Willow was awake with a cup of tea when Tara came upstairs.

“Catch any of that?” she asked.

Willow shook her head.

“Oh. Spike kind of yelled for a little bit.”

“I caught something unintelligible and British.”

“He misses her a lot, for what it’s worth. I guess you know that, though.”

“I don’t trust him. I mean, Xander trusts him less, but I still round up to ‘don’t trust.’”

“Dawn seems to trust him.”

“Well, he’s got the chip, anyway. I guess he’s like that one cousin who shows up at Thanksgiving, you know.”

“I don’t know.” Buffy and Willow talked about families like everyone knew what they were supposed to be like. “I th-think Mom and I were ‘that cousin,’ you know.”

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” Willow got up and hugged Tara tight.

“Do we trust Dawn?” Tara asked.

“Huh?”

“Dawn trusts Spike. Do we trust Dawn trusting Spike?”

“I dunno."

“I think Dawn kind of needs him,” said Tara, “She doesn’t have much family left.”

“He’s family?” Willow sounded a little shocked.

“I mean, that’s up to him, isn’t it?”

Willow sighed. "I hate this. I wish we could ask Buffy."

Tara held her for a long time before they turned out the lights.


End file.
